She looked for the laundry; there was no laundry. There were washing contracts, but up to the time of her arrival "only seven shirts had been washed." The clothes and bed linen of wounded men and of those sick with infectious diseases were thrown in together. Moreover, the contractors stole most of the clothes that came into their hands, so that the sick did not like to part with their few poor garments, for fear of never seeing them again, and were practically without clean linen, except when a soldier's wife would now and then take compassion on them, and wash out a few articles. These were the conditions that Florence Nightingale had to meet. A delicate and sensitive woman, reared amid beauty and luxury, these were the scenes among which she was to live for nearly two years. But one thing more must be noted. Do you think everyone was glad to see her and her nurses? Not by any means! The overwrought doctors were dismayed and angered at the prospect of a "parcel of women" coming--as they fancied--to interfere with their work, and make it harder than it was already. The red-tape officials were even less pleased. What? A woman in petticoats, a "Lady-in-Chief," coming to inquire into their deeds and their methods? Had they not said repeatedly that everything was all right? What was the meaning of this? This was her coming; this is what she found; now we shall see what she did. CHAPTER X. THE LADY-IN-CHIEF. Miss Nightingale arrived at Scutari on November 4th. You have seen what she found; but there was worse to come. Only twenty-four hours after her arrival, the wounded from the battle of Inkerman began to come in; soon every inch of room in both the Barrack and the General hospital was full, and men by hundreds were lying on the muddy ground outside, unable to find room even on the floor of the corridor. Neither Lady-in-Chief nor nurses had had time to rest after their long voyage, to make plans for systematic work, even to draw breath after their first glimpse of the horrors around them, when this great avalanche of suffering and misery came down upon them. No woman in history has had to face such a task as now flung itself upon Florence Nightingale. She met it as the great meet trial, quietly and calmly. Her cheek might pale at what she had to see, but there was no flinching in those clear, gray-blue eyes, no trembling of those firm lips. Ship after ship discharged its ghastly freight at the ferry below; train after train of wounded was dragged up the hill, brought into the overflowing hospital, laid down on pallet, on mattress, on bare floor, on muddy ground, wherever space could be found. "The men lay in double rows down the long corridors, forming several miles of suffering humanity."